joining me tonight is congressman emanuel cleaver from missouri. congressman, great to have you with us. >> good to be with you. >> you bet. i would like to talk about the congressional black caucus if i could. they have been very, very strong about do not touch the entitlements, we're not going to move on this. so you have the president not moving on rates. you have your caucus not moving at all on entitlements. although you said the democratic leadership -- you said you could support means testing for medicare. what does that mean and how far are you willing to go. >> first of all, social security is off the table. there are not only 42 members in the congressional black caucus who would not vote for a deal that included social security, but i think the majority of our democratic caucus. social security has not contributed one penny to the deficit. it's just irresponsible to even put social security in a discussion as we are trying to get some kind of deal. medicare can, i think, be massaged in terms of means testing. with the upper income indivi